A jury is now deliberating in the federal criminal trial of two New Orleans police officers accused of lying about aspects of a fatal shooting one of the officers committed outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center a few nights after Hurricane Katrina. The case went to the jury shortly before noon, after U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance gave instructions to the 12-member jury weighing the fate of New Orleans police officers Ray Jones and Ronald Mitchell.

View full sizeRon HavivA National Guard soldier walks past a covered body at the Convention Center on Sept. 3, 2005, where people took refuge after Hurricane Katrina. The man, Danny Brumfield, was killed by a New Orleans police officer.

There was no testimony in the case this morning. Each side spent about 50 minutes on closing arguments. The trial began Monday.

Defense attorneys rested their case at the beginning of the day, declining to call any more witnesses. They called one witness yesterday.

While this was the third federal trial related to the actions of New Orleans police officers after Katrina, the focus is in this case is much more narrow than the Danziger Bridge police shooting and Henry Glover cases. In those cases, federal prosecutors alleged that not only were officers responsible for deaths, but acted to cover up what happened.

In this case, officers Ronald Mitchell and Ray Jones face obstruction of justice and perjury charges solely for alleged lies they told in civil depositions about the shooting. It was Mitchell who shot 45-year-old Danny Brumfield Sr. in front of the Convention Center as the partners passed in a marked police car. Brumfield had tried to stop the car, several witnesses said.

Exactly what happened that nigth was the core of the trial, as prosecutors sought to prove Mitchell and Jones lied and defense attorneys said their answers in the civil depositions were reasonable. The depositions were taken as part of a federal lawsuit filed by Brumfield's family after the storm.

During their arguments, prosecutors Christopher Lomax and Michael Magner emphasized that the officers had reason to lie in the depositions.

"(Mitchell) knew he was being accused of wrongful death so he fashioned the facts in a way that rendered it appropriate," Lomax said.

But defense attorneys repeatedly emphasized that the federal government's witnesses were inconsistent in their statements. Instead of proving that Jones and Mitchell lied, the witnesses provided a muddled picture, they argued.

"I suggest to you that their witnesses would have had to provide to you a clear and unequivocal picture of what actually took place that day and they did not," said Kerry Cuccia, who represents Mitchell.

Cuccia noted that the three civilian witnesses called by prosecutors all provided differing details about what happened, from where Brumfield was standing before he ran into the street to his interaction with the police car he tried to stop. One witness said the officers in the car ordered the man out of the street and he yelled back. Others said there were no verbal interactions, Cuccia said.

Mitchell was accused of lying not only about what happened before he fired a pistol-grip shotgun at Brumfield, but whether he and his partner stopped the car to check on the slain man after he fell to the ground.

In his 2007 deposition, Mitchell recounts that the car was traveling down Convention Center Boulevard when Brumfield ran out and jumped on the hood of the car. The man smashed into the windshield and then jumped off, landing near Mitchell's passenger-side window. He then lunged with a shiny object, he said.

Cuccia argued that the testimony of one civilian witness, Brumfield family friend Christopher Howard, could fit Mitchell's description of what happened. He re-enacted the more chaotic rendition of what Howard said, with Brumfield flailing on the hood of the car, then grabbing onto the passenger side window as his legs were up in the air.

The attorney questioned whether Mitchell was describing something similar, but instead perceived that Brumfield, after flailing about, had jumped to the ground, with his body swinging forward in what looked like a lunge.

In his rebuttal, Magner said the defense attorney was putting words in his client's mouth, emphasizing that Mitchell specifically used the words "jumped down" to describe Brumfield's actions. Mitchell also said that the Brumfield lunged at him while facing him, Magner noted.

Prosecutors emphasized that the forensic evidence in the case doesn't support Mitchell's version of events. Dr. James Traylor, a forensic pathologist, concluded that Brumfield was shot in the rear left shoulder at close range.

Magner also emphasized that two New Orleans police officers disputed another aspect of the officers' stories: That they stopped to check on the condition of Brumfield after he was shot.

The two officers, Sgts. Kermanshiah Perkins and Kendrick Allen, were riding in a pick-up truck following behind the police cruiser. Both testified that they didn't see the car stop or the officers' get out to check on Brumfield's vital signs.

Prosecutors emphasized that Mitchell was quite specific in the deposition about getting out of the car and putting two fingers to the side of Brumfield's throat to check for a pulse. They noted that not only did their fellow officers say they didn't see this happen, but no civilian witness saw an officer exit the police car.

Defense attorney Eric Hessler, who represents Jones, focused on his client's vaguer retelling of this part of the episode, in which he says the officers only briefly got out of the car and he wasn't sure whether his partner was able to get to Brumfield before they heard gunfire.

Hessler asserted that his client's statement was ambiguous, but not an intentional lie. It was up to Brumfield's attorneys to elicit more specific testimony, he said.

"Ray's statement was not an intentional impediment, designed to impede or obstruct. If the answer was ambiguous, ask another question, please," Hessler said.